


Nothing Was Said

by madeleine334



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Death, Gen, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeleine334/pseuds/madeleine334
Summary: Ferdinand suffers from nightmares after the Black Eagles lose Bernadetta. Hubert hears his screams and helps Ferdinand sleep through the night. Soon, Ferdinand becomes unable to sleep without Hubert's pressance. Hubert struggles to mourn her loss.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	Nothing Was Said

**Author's Note:**

> Struggled to title this.

_He couldn’t save her, he couldn’t save her._

_She was right there, feet from her, and suddenly she was gone. He didn’t save her. He could have saved her._

_Someone is screaming._

_Someone is screaming._

_Make them stop. Make them stop!_

Oh.

Ferdinand is shook awake. Panicked, dripping in sweat. His throat felt so raw. He didn’t know who was shaking him, who was _touching_ and he couldn’t get away. He tried to push them off him, to escape.

_They were back,_ he thought. _They had taken her and now they had come back._

“Ferdinand!” A voice called to him, right in front of him. The hands shaking him belong to the man in front of him.

“Hubert,” Ferdinand realized. 

He was in his room. He wasn’t on the battlefield. He wasn’t in danger.

“Bernadetta,” he remembered.

It was dark out, still the dead of night, but the moon shown bright enough through his window and into his room to be able to see the sadness that settled in Hubert’s eyes, in Hubert’s face when Ferdinand uttered that name.

“Go to sleep, Ferdinand,” Hubert told him. “It’s late and you need the rest.”

“What about you?” the other noble asked. His voice hid none of his concern laced with the fear that still gripped him moments before.

“Don’t worry about me,” his classmate tried, “I don’t need the sleep as much as you do.”

“Hubert,” Ferdinand said again, this time more sternly than he spoke a moment before.

The dark haired man rolled his eyes. “I shall stay here until you fall asleep, how is that?”

“You staying awake till I fall asleep is not anything close to what I meant,” Ferdinand said disapprovingly. “If you are going to stay, you are going to sleep.” He realized that he was still holding on to Hubert, as was Hubert to him. “Get in,” he sighed, “I’ll scoot over. The bed is big enough for two and don’t try to weasel your way out of it. I’ll at least know you’ve tried to sleep if you’re here. Edelgard needs you well rested.”

Hubert shook his head no, but obliged anyway, choosing to lay on top of the covers, refusing to touch Ferdinand again once the man began to move and Hubert let him go.

“Was I so loud that you heard me from your room?” Ferdinand then asked, staring up at his ceiling. 

“I wasn’t in my room,” Hubert said.

Ferdinand looked over, silently asking for more of an explanation. 

“I was walking the halls,” he continued. “I happened to be in front of your door when I heard the first scream. By the time the second one left you, I was already trying to shake you awake.”

“Oh,” Ferdinand felt a bit embarrassed for screaming in the first place. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No,” was all Hubert replied.

“I understand,” Ferdinand said, feeling a tear roll down his cheek.

*** 

Hubert hadn’t been able to sleep after the Black Eagles had returned from their mission. The Professor had told them there wouldn’t be class for the rest of the week and to take this time to heal. Hubert watched silently as Lady Edelgard followed after their young professor once they were dismissed. He knew well by now to know that the Professor had the attention of his Lady. Perhaps he didn’t like that fact, but he wouldn’t do anything about it...not right now. Instead, he would focus his time on making sure the rest of the Black Eagles were...were...healing. Lady Edelgard needed them to be ready to fight when the time came, after all...that is what he told himself, over and over, that his care and attention for them was all for her benefit.

Ferdinand had been the first to retreat to his room, as Hubert suspected he would. Caspar walked Petra and Dorothea to their rooms before allowing Linhardt to walk him to his own.

With a heaviness in his chest, Hubert returned to his own room. However, he didn’t stay long. He felt compelled to walk the halls, specifically, he felt compelled to hover outside of Ferdinand’s room, just down from his own.

The scream he heard proved his instincts correct. After all, Ferdinand was probably the closest to Bernadetta, so close that it was a popular rumor amongst the students at Garreg Mach that the two were romantically involved with each other. Hubert knew that it was all false. Bernadetta held no romantic feelings towards Ferdinand, nor did he to her. Bernadetta feared losing the freedom she had and worried that any romantic relationship would reach her family, causing them to seek her out. Yes, Hubert knew all of this, knew what Bernadetta feared. He made sure to learn all he could about his fellow house mates, especially since their strengths and weaknesses would need to be documented for Lady Edelgard’s purpose. She and Ferdinand were merely friends...were friends. 

Ferdinand, the man who now lay next to him, trying to hide the tears that just won’t seem to stop coming. Ferdinand, the man who was screaming from some nightmare that was surely caused by the events of their mission. Ferdinand, the man that had clung to Hubert once he had fallen to sleep, but never screamed again that night. Ferdinand, the man whose auburn hair Hubert ran his naked fingers through while he slept. Ferdinand, the man that was closest to Bernadetta on the battlefield. Ferdinand, the man that ran after her once they realized that she was surrounded. Ferdinand, the man that was the first to take down the bandit that slit her throat. Ferdinand, the man that Hubert woke up to when the sun crossed his face, not even realizing he had fallen asleep in the first place. 

Hubert left Ferdinand’s bed before the man had realized it, still asleep when Hubert closed his door behind him.

*** 

Two nights pass and Hubert finds himself waking up next to Ferdinand, feeling more rested than he believes he had in months, despite the events that had taken place days before. On the second night, Ferdinand admits that sleeping next to Hubert has made him feel more at ease. Hubert tells him it should be the opposite and wonders if he is losing his touch.

Hubert volunteers to assist the Professor clean out her room on the third day. There is writings in there that Sylvain asked for, having also volunteered to help them. Hubert doesn’t question Sylvain’s motives, but the red head admits that he enjoyed reading the stories she wrote. He then tells Hubert that he considered trying to get her out of her room more so they could talk about them. Hubert thinks that Bernadetta would have hated the thought, but says nothing of it.

Hubert is grateful for Linhardt taking Ferdinand out to the stables for riding lessons during that time, knowing full well that Linhardt knows how to ride a horse. Ferdinand likely knows this, too, but nobody says anything otherwise. 

There is a sting of jealousy in Hubert’s chest when he sees Ferdinand smiling and even laughing at one point at the dinner table, sitting next to Linhardt and Caspar across the room. Linhardt leans over to whisper something in Ferdinand’s ear before looking up to see Hubert watching. Nobody says anything.

Hubert doesn’t go to Ferdinand’s bed that night.

A week passes and classes have started again for the Black Eagles. There was a funeral held by the monastery. Hubert still doesn’t go to Ferdinand, even though the cavalryman in looking worse for wear. 

Hubert thinks of how soft Ferdinand’s hair was that night as he ran his fingers through it. It was similar to when he would care for Lady Edelgard in their youth, yet so very different at the same time.

It takes another three days before Ferdinand knocks on Hubert’s door at night. His eyes are unfocused, yet entirely focused on Hubert at the same time. He looks wild, unkempt, but mostly, he looks so very _tired._

“Please Hubert, I can’t watch her die again,” Ferdinand begged, eyes already wet with unshed tears. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, and Hubert knew this to be true.

“You are becoming too dependent,” Hubert told him. “I was only looking after you at night for Lady Edelgard.”

Ferdinand took a step closer, trembling, ignoring Hubert’s reasoning. “I can’t stand it; it’s killing me every night.”

Hubert stared at the nearly broken man before him. His best friend had been violently ripped away from the edge of his finger tips, haunting him every night. “One night,” Hubert concedes, “and then you will have to figure out how to console yourself without my assistance.”

“Thank you, Hubert,” Ferdinand said, tears finally falling from his golden brown eyes.

Hubert fought himself to not look away. Truly, he had been outside of Ferdinand’s door that night and every night after because he worried about his fellow classmate. He worried about all of them, although he would never utter any confirmation of this.

They went to Ferdinand’s room and it felt very comfortable for Hubert, something that he had not expected. They lay on Ferdinand’s bed, as usual. 

“You can sleep under the covers, you know,” Ferdinand tells him after lying down.

“I’d rather not,” Hubert replies, not wanting to indulge in too much of this foreign feeling of comfort. He didn’t even feel that in his own room.

Ferdinand looks over to Hubert in the darkness of the room once the candle has been put out. “Hubert?”

“Yes?”

“Could you play with my hair again?” he asked. If the candle was still burning, Hubert may have been able to notice the burning red that colored Ferdinand’s cheeks. “It made me feel calm that first night. It felt really nice.”

Hubert silently obliged, moving himself over closer to the other. He said nothing as he felt the soft curls touch his gloveless fingertips. Not once had Ferdinand mentioned the scars. He recalled doing the same for the crying child that Lady Edelgard once was.

The image of Bernadetta’s throat being slit flashes through Hubert’s mind as he closes his eyes.

*** 

Hubert knew they couldn’t continue this way. He had been too focused on how Ferdinand was coping, ignoring his own need to mourn. There had been nothing he could do, she was there and then she was gone. This was the reality of the world and it could have been any of them; Caspar, the Professor, or even Ferdinand. They were soldiers, they knew that death was their reality; it just hadn’t seemed so real until they lost one of their own. He went to Ferdinand’s bed, regardless.

It had been two weeks since that mission.

*** 

Hubert finds himself going to Ferdinand’s bed every night for the next week, unable to stop the anxious feeling in his bones. He tells himself that it is the only way to assure they both are able to sleep through the night, since he knows he would be up pacing the halls if he didn’t and Ferdinand would probably downright refuse to sleep alone at this point. Hubert hates the thought of Ferdinand seeking out help from anyone else, which Hubert hates that he hates it. It wouldn’t be such a bad negotiation if Hubert had been getting enough sleep as well, but he can’t help but wait until he knows Ferdinand has fallen asleep before he tries.

A new moon is upon them and Hubert find that he is unable to fall asleep in his own bed once Ferdinand is suddenly called home for a few days.

“Perhaps you’re the dependant one,” Linhardt tells him the morning of the second day of Ferdinand’s absence. 

Hubert eyes him in the dining hall, annoyed with the sleepy healer.

“Don’t tease him,” Caspar tries, not really wanting to get involved with any spats the two might have, but trying none the less. 

“Have you even been able to move on, Hubert?” Linhardt asks, ignoring the fighter next to him.

Hubert responds by leaving the table.

Linhardt finds him later at the bridge that connects the chapel to the rest of the monastery. “You know, I could give you some tea to help you sleep,” he says, walking up behind Hubert. “I have plenty to spare.”

“You were...right,” Hubert then said, ignoring his offer.

“About which one?”

Both,” Hubert responded with a huff. 

“I suspected as much,” Linhardt sighed.

“How are you faring?” Hubert then asked, surprising the healer a bit.

“With Caspar staying with me, we are getting through this together. I assumed that was what you and Ferdinand were doing,” he raised an eyebrow in question.

“Ferdinand has nightmares,” Hubert shared.

“He has told me as much,” Linhardt nodded. “You were helping him and then suddenly you weren’t.”

“I did not realize his mourning required my constant attention,” he didn’t mean it.

“And what of your mourning, Hubert?”

“I am dealing with it.”

“How so? Have you even thought about her?” Linhardt looked at Hubert with a scowl.

“Of course I have,” Hubert scowled back just as fiercely. “You think I didn’t care about Bernadetta?” 

Linnhardt didn’t respond.

“She was scared of me and that alone made me want to change how she saw me. She was important enough to make me want to stop scaring her,” he growled. He felt mad, upset that Linhardt would imply such a thing. Although, he didn’t know why he should be so angry in the first place. Why did he care about what she thought of him?

“Why?” he asked. Linhardt didn’t look as mad anymore.

Hubert didn’t know the answer. “I’m not sure, actually,” he felt so tired, “Perhaps because Ferdinand cared so much.” The thought spread warmth through his core.

“He should be back tomorrow,” Linhardt then said. “You should probably get yourself sorted by then. He’s probably as tired as you are.”

Hubert knew that was probably the truth. Ferdinand had been unable to fall asleep until Hubert would lay next to him, hand in his hair. More often than not now, Hubert would wake to Ferdinand curled around him. Hubert had missed that in these past few days, he realized.

“How does one,” he stops himself before he can finish.

“Crying helps,” Linhardt tells him, knowing what he was going to ask.

And then Hubert suddenly feels it, like just the confirmation was enough for him to begin the first steps to moving on. The first tear was almost unexpected. He used a Warp spell before the tear could hit the ground, teleporting to Ferdinand’s room, not even his own. There were handkerchiefs all over the room, unused but _necessary for any noble,_ Hubert imagined Ferdinand would say.

He took a few before laying onto the familiar bed. He let himself get under the covers. 

The tears didn’t stop. He closed his eyes, seeing Bernadetta fall to the ground, a stream of red surrounding her.

*** 

Ferdinand did return that next day. The man looked just as tired as Hubert felt. There was no class that day, giving the two time to simply be next to one another. They went to Ferdinand’s room and laid down, this time with Hubert getting under the covers.

“Why are there so many handkerchiefs in my bed?” Ferdinand asked, noticing them all once he opened the door.

Hubert said nothing, only pulled the other close to him.

“Hubert?” Ferdinand asked, looking up at the man that had his chin rested on Ferdinand’s head as they lay next to each other.

“There was nothing either of us could do,” Hubert said and Ferdinand instantly understood.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I think you’re right.”

*** 

The next few days, the two were nearly inseparable. Ferdinand made tea for the two of them the day after he returned, something the two had not partook in with each other until now. It quickly became a part of their routine. Linhardt never mentioned anything, but he did give Hubert a smile, Caspar next to Linhardt as always. Edelgard had told Hubert that she was glad the two of them were closer. Dorothea had teased them lightheartedly at first, but she didn’t seem all into it, like she was more often nowadays. Petra was quick to appear during those times.

Another week had passed and Hubert once again followed Ferdinand to his room. There was no longer any question, hadn’t been for a long time now. 

Hubert hadn’t closed his eyes to see her die since Ferdinand had returned from his call home.

Ferdinand had not mentioned a nightmare, nor had he woken up screaming in a long time, either.

Before Ferdinand opened his door, he turned to Hubert. “What do we do now?”

Hubert was perplexed by the sudden question. “The bell for curfew has already rung,” he pointed out.

“That’s...not what I meant,” Ferdinand adverted his eyes from the mage, reaching out and taking Hubert’s still gloved hand. The man had begun taking his gloves off every night once he had walked through Ferdinand’s door.

“Oh,” Hubert felt warmth spread across his cheeks. He didn’t pull his hand away.

“You don’t,” Ferdinand began.

“Come to the market with me,” Hubert interrupted, catching Ferdinand off guard, “after our tea,” he continued, “tomorrow.”

Ferdinand smiled softly before nodding, opening his door and walking in, Hubert following.

Hubert no longer slept on top of the covers, finding it easier to be under them with Ferdinand, holding him close as he stroked naked fingers through soft auburn hair.

Hubert felt like he might almost fall asleep before Ferdinand until the other spoke.

“She told me that you were trying to be less scary around her,” he said.

His fingers stilled for a moment, realizing what he was talking about, before continuing with their movements as before. “Yes,” he replied, “she had made it very obvious that she was troubled by me in her presence.” 

“That wasn’t it,” Ferdinand tried, “well, that wasn’t it completely.”

Hubert felt himself chuckle at the correction and it felt good to chuckle.

“She saw the effort you were making and she told me she wanted to be able to not be as scared of you,” Ferdinand told him.

“Undoing all my hard work,” Hubert said a bit fondly, smiling at the memory of the archer fainting on her feet and when he had to carry her to her room.

Ferdinand chuckled at his reply and Hubert’s heart nearly soared. 

“Hubert,” Ferdinand said.

“Yes?”

“I never thanked you, did I?” he asked.

“For what?” Hubert asked, knowing what he meant.

Ferdinand curled up close to him. “For everything,” he sighed. “Even before. You took care of her, too.”

Hubert’s fingers stilled once again.

“Thank you,” Ferdinand trembled.

The first drop that penetrated through his shirt and touched his skin was not at all shocking for Hubert, nor was the feeling of his own wetness in his eyes. He clutched Ferdinand tighter, not wanting to let go out of fear that he would lose him, too. 

The next morning had Hubert waking to an already woken Ferdinand, something that had not happened before. The golden brown eyes stared into Hubert’s pale green ones. Ferdinand leaned in to connect their lips for a brief moment before pulling away nearly just as fast. Hubert reached up to caress Ferdinand’s cheek.

“From now on, could you stay until I wake up, too?” Ferdinand asked.

“If I can,” Hubert replied honestly, knowing that there would be early mornings in his future at some point, “As long as you greet me like that every morning.”

Two shared smiles as they lay there for just a bit longer.

**Author's Note:**

> This concept suddenly hit me at night and I couldn't sleep till I wrote it. It is a little rushed, sorry.
> 
> I love Bernadetta and I don't know why I did this to her.


End file.
